The Day After the Collapse
by Flatpickluvr
Summary: My twist on what could have happened to House the day after the crane collapse.  Somewhat AU because in my story, the last three minutes of the season six finale didn't happen.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N – I'm a confirmed Huddy shipper, despite what you may think after you read this. Since I found the last few minutes of the Season 6 finale difficult to believe, especially given the fact that Cuddy blatantly told House she didn't love him, I just decided to add an odd twist on to what happened after the crane collapse. I wanted to explore what would happen if Cuddy didn't step in when she did, House didn't have a Vicodin stash and he came to work the next day. Since the show is on Monday evenings here in the US, my story starts on the following morning (Tuesday).**

10 AM Tuesday morning

Leaning on the everlasting cane a lot more than usual, House lurched his way in through the automatic doors at PPTH to be met by his usual nemesis, the Dean of Medicine.

"You're late!" Cuddy yelled, a little more loudly than she normally would. Patients and staff members looked up in irritation at the loud yelling. The clinic was full to bursting with patients from the crane collapse suffering from minor injuries, and other patients suffering from summer-related conditions like swimmers' ear, acute sunburn, and poison ivy. The mood in the clinic reflected just how overworked and stressed out the staff members were. Cuddy herself was moving with noticeable stiffness. House noticed the powerful, pungent odor of Ben Gay or whatever pain relieving lotion Cuddy had used on herself, which seemed to emanate from every pore of her body. As he tried to make his way past her to get to the elevator, he was blocked by Cuddy and a throng of angry clinic patients waiting for a doctor. House was forced to a wobbly, unsteady standstill. "Yeah, well, my leg is kinda dictating my schedule today. Guess you can't see I'm about to fall over." House shot back at her with an angry scowl and moved past her as quickly as he was able. Trying to dodge Cuddy and a stream of clinic patients who were trying to follow him, Cuddy turned to watch him attempting to make it to the elevator and noticed that something was wrong with his gait. Anger turned to a questioning look as she saw that for every three or four "normal" steps (normal for House anyway), his left leg appeared to buckle and he would lean all of his weight onto the cane. The only thing apparently keeping him upright at all was the cane.

"House, what's wrong?" Cuddy shouted behind his back. The sudden movement of turning around to answer Cuddy upset his already precarious balance and suddenly he was a 6 foot 2 heap of sprawling arms, legs, and cane on the floor.

"Just shut up and leave me alone," he muttered to Cuddy and the crowd of clinic patients, whose looks of frustration at having to wait so long for a doctor melted as they rushed toward him and smothered him with attempts to help.

"Get the hell away from me and leave me alone!" he screamed.

Their looks of pity turned back to looks of irritation again as the nurses and clinic patients walked away. Cuddy rolled her eyes at him and walked away too, as if this were something that happened every day or else maybe he was faking it to avoid clinic duty. Someone could have recognized that he was legitimately in pain, reacting out of embarrassment and silently offered him a hand anyway, but suddenly Cuddy and all the rest of these "concerned" people just ambled away from him indifferently and left him on the floor, to fend for himself.

Embarrassed and humiliated at his predicament, House tried to figure out how he was going to get back up. Normally when a patient gets physical therapy after a disabling injury, one of the goals of physical therapy is to teach the patient how to get back up when they fall (or how to get back in a wheel chair if they use a wheel chair). House, having ditched most of his outpatient physical therapy sessions, never learned the ways physical therapists teach patients with new disabilities to properly get up after a fall so they don't injure some other part of their body in the attempt to get up. He'd developed the bad habit of hopping back up on one leg. Now, that other leg was acting up, and he had no clue how he was going to get off the floor. The cane was fine, and he could reach it thankfully. He put his left leg through some gentle range of motion movements on the floor trying to judge how reliable it would be, and also trying to buy time while he figured out how he was going to get up unaided. Eventually he dragged himself over to the wall and used it for support as he awkwardly made his way up to a vertical position again, back on two feet between the cane and the wall.

Cuddy, and everyone else who just left him to his own devices, were still staring at him, albeit from a distance. The difference is they were no longer staring at him with pity.

Cuddy, standing at the clinic doors, had a look of exasperation on her face, as if House faked the whole scene. Everyone else was staring at him with anger, as if they felt HE was in the wrong for yelling at THEM. Even though there was nobody between him and the elevator, as he made his way alone toward the elevator, he still felt as though he was on stage being heckled by a crowd of angry idiots. Try as he might, he felt like he couldn't get away from them fast enough. Their stares were still burning holes in his back as the elevator doors finally closed.

Hunched over his cane gripping it with both hands and shaking, he thought _thank God I'm in here by myself_. He hoped that the elevator wouldn't stop on its way to the fourth floor. He was fine as long as the ride was smooth, but with every sudden jerk of the elevator, he was reminded exactly how bad an idea it was for him to get involved in the crane collapse disaster yesterday.

As the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, House had a nasty suspicion that he was in trouble again. Sure enough, two or three normal lurching steps later, that electrifying pain shot up the back of his left leg again and stabbed him in his left buttock and he went down on the floor again. Foreman and Chase heard the crash and came out to investigate, more with a look of curiosity than anything else. Both being accustomed to their boss' typical refusal of any kind of help, neither of them offered him a hand in getting up. The weird thing about all of this, in House's mind, was that every time he fell, the pain in his left leg stopped. Something about lying balled up on the floor made the stabbing pain in the back of his left leg stop. Well, this was going to be a hell of a day. Foreman and Chase just kept talking about their newest case. They'd seen him like this plenty of times, and thought nothing of conducting a differential with their boss while he was lying horizontal and curled up in a fetal position on the floor. The difference, as Foreman and Chase failed to notice, was that every other time their boss was on the floor, it was in the privacy of the Diagnostics Department offices. This time he was on public display, again, just as he was on the first floor. House had thought Foreman and Chase might be just a tad bit smarter than the idiots (Cuddy included) who ignored his plight on the first floor, but as he looked up at them with a grim-faced silence, he realized his judgment of them was off today. _Should I say something or not? _he thought. His pride was wounded, and the embarrassment from his earlier fall that had worn off just came crashing down all around him again. He was too embarrassed to ask for help, and they were too used to his refusals of help any other time in the past six years to even think about offering help now. So the awkward and embarrassing differential diagnosis scene just played itself out in front of the fourth floor elevator doors, with House saying nothing but shooting them wicked looks. Chase and Foreman discussed the patient, oblivious to HIPAA regulations prohibiting public discussion of confidential patient information, and even more oblivious to their boss' silent stares. Chase and Foreman walked away with their self-assigned patient-related tasks for the day and House was left on the floor in embarrassed silence, trying to figure out how he was going to get back to his office safely and salvage what was left of his pride.

House had a simple case of sciatic nerve irritation brought on by relying mostly on his left leg to crawl through tons of rubble yesterday and having some of it collapse on him. The sciatic nerve runs up the back of the hip, through the back of the buttocks. For able bodied people, this would typically mean a few days of occasional stabbing pain in the back of one hip while walking, and occasionally having to rely on the other leg until the affected leg heals. It can cause the leg to give out, but it's temporary and goes away on its own. An ordinary disabled person wouldn't even be involved in something like crawling through rubble at the site of a crane collapse. House was no ordinary disabled person, though and now he had a unique problem. Depression, probably even PTSD, kept him from admitting that he was suffering from the after effects of crawling through a collapsed building in an attempt to save Hannah and that he might need crutches or (more likely) a wheel chair for a few days while the temporary injury healed. Never mind the fact that he'd just fallen, right smack in the middle of a public area with everyone gawking at him, twice in the last few minutes. He was even more depressed and embarrassed by the thought that more people would gawk at him if he had to use a wheel chair or crutches. Irrational, yes, but untreated or undertreated depression especially combined with PTSD can make you act or think irrationally. For all his normal bravado, claiming that he didn't care what people thought of him, he had this self-perceived notion that other peoples' interactions with him were influenced by his disability. He always said that he wouldn't be defined by his disability, but deep down, he was defined by how he thought other people reacted to his disability. Some would argue that he had a longstanding depression inadequately treated by Dr. Nolan, and if he didn't have PTSD after the infarction or the bus crash, he certainly had it now, after the crane disaster.

Every time someone ever expressed an interest in him, his walls went up even higher. He was convinced that they weren't really interested in him so much as they pitied him or had some type of ulterior motive; some dishonest or unwholesome reason for wanting to be around him. Most people learn to accept altered body image as they learn to deal with disability; obviously this was still a hurdle for House. All these years later, he still couldn't come to grips with his altered body image, so whenever someone (especially a stranger) expressed any kind of interest in him, even just in passing, he interpreted it as pity or as an attempt to take advantage of him, and shot them down before they could get too close. Even during his stint at Mayfield, none of those so-called mental health professionals picked up on the obvious signs of untreated body image problems and/orPTSD that probably first manifested themselves after the infarction. His hallucinations last year could just as easily have been due to depression or PTSD rather than Vicodin use. He could have continued on a monitored narcotic regimen while in Mayfield, while treating his depression and PTSD at the same time. The Vicodin was now gone, and now after having had a building collapse on him, the only pain medication he allowed himself was a woefully inadequate dose of Ibuprofen. Any other person who'd had part of a building collapse on them while they were digging through rubble to rescue someone else, would be justified in taking adequate pain relief afterward (even if it came in the form of prescribed narcotics) without fear of having other people misjudge them.

Ergo, what should have been just a few days' worth of minor inconvenience for House having to deal with a wheel chair or crutches while the sciatic nerve irritation in his left hip healed, became a complete nightmare.

The nightmare continued Tuesday afternoon when he fell for the third time in one day. After the second fall in front of the fourth floor elevator doors, when Foreman and Chase ignored him, he again dragged his body over to the wall with the intention of trying to get up under his own power. Wilson's assistant, Sandy, saw him in time and silently offered him a hand. House accepted her help. Practically, he knew he probably wasn't going to be able to get up on his own no matter how hard he leaned against the wall.

Having made his way back to his office, he ate some ibuprofen and shut his door and the blinds. Sitting in a certain position took all the strain off the irritated nerve, he noticed, and once he found his comfortable spot in the Eames chair, he wasn't getting up for any reason. He didn't realize that he'd lost his cell phone down the elevator shaft. It popped out of its leather holster and dropped down the crack between the elevator door and the floor when he fell exiting the elevator.

So after calling him about 15 times on his cell phone and getting no reply, Cuddy called his office phone incessantly. The office phone wasn't close enough to his Eames chair for him to be able to answer it in time. Cuddy thought he was being his typical asinine self, avoiding clinic duty at all costs and irritating her in the process. House was simply trying to avoid falling again trying to get to the phone in time to answer it. Cuddy gave up trying to call him and stormed up to his office. She saw the darkened room, the closed blinds and the closed door, and stormed in through the door expecting to find him naked on a massage table surrounded by candles and hookers.

What she found was even less surprising to her. House was sound asleep in his Eames chair with both legs propped up. The only thing out of the ordinary was a heating pad under his left hip.

"House, get up!" she shouted. "Answer your damn phone! I need you in the clinic now!" she shouted again. He looked at her with a cynical snarl, pointed to the heating pad, and said "I told you, my leg is dictating what I can and can't do today. I guess I should have specified WHICH leg. Apparently, the facts that I crawled around in rubble yesterday, had a ton of it fall on my shoulder, that I'm walking like a drunken Frankenstein today, that I fell twice on my ass and that I have a heating pad under my LEFT butt cheek aren't obvious enough for you. Go away."

"House, what's wrong with you?" Cuddy asked with a sudden show of concern. _Is she freaking kidding?_ House thought. She _can't _be that ignorant. Whether her look of concern was sincere or not, House couldn't tell. He said "Go ask Sandy. Apparently she's the only one with enough functioning neurons in her brain to figure out that someone with a disability who crawled through tons of rubble yesterday, had part of a building collapse on him while trying to rescue a patient who died anyway, came to work the next day in spite of everything else, and fell on his ass twice within a few minutes, needs a helping hand. What I don't need is for you to feel guilty like you always do. You can wipe that fake look of concern off your face. Please move my phone over here where I can reach it and leave." Cuddy wheeled around and stormed back out again. House got up to move his office phone closer to the Eames chair when the electric pain shot up his left buttock again and his left leg gave out. For the third time in the same day, House was sprawled out on the floor. This time he was alone in his office with the blinds and the door closed, the lights off, and no way to reach the phone or get help.


	2. Later Tuesday afternoon

Chapter 2

Taub walked in to the Diagnostics Office Tuesday afternoon, having spent the entire morning in the clinic treating patients with cuts and scrapes from the crane collapse yesterday. Sitting down in the outer office at his usual place, he thought maybe House had gone home. After all, the lights were off, the blinds were closed and so was his office door. It wasn't unheard of for House to go home early, Taub smiled to himself. Chase and Foreman joined him in the outer office, pouring coffee and talking about their patient – the crane operator. "I guess House got up off the floor Ok," Foreman said. "House was on the floor?" Taub said with incredulity. "Where?" "Oh, he fell in front of the elevator. You know how he is. If we'd have offered him a hand getting up, he'd have ripped it off. I guess he's Ok", Chase said.

"Well, he did have a fairly big gash in his shoulder from the crane accident yesterday. I guess we'd better check on him." Foreman said as he and Taub made a move for House's office.

The blinds over the sliding glass door between House's inner and outer offices were closed. As Foreman and Taub slid the door open and parted the shades, they sprang into action and shouted "Chase, get in here! We need a hand, quick!"

House was lying in a small pool of his own blood. His shoulder wound had reopened when he hit the corner of his desk during the fall. He had no other apparent injuries and was awake and mumbling something about sciatic nerves. "Took you all long enough," he said weakly to Foreman.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier that something was wrong?" Foreman asked.

"Didn't figure it would take a rocket scientist to figure out something's wrong when you saw me lying in the middle of a public hallway and not making any attempt to get up. Thought maybe you geniuses might have figured it out without my having to S-P-E-L-L it out for you. Since I have to spell it out, listen up closely. I am not going to repeat myself. I must have injured my left sciatic nerve yesterday. I've fallen three times today. I can't get up by myself and I can't walk. I'm fine otherwise. Just get a wheel chair in here, move my cane over where I can reach it, and I'll figure out what to do after that." House's voice was getting stronger the more embarrassed and angry he got.

Foreman stayed with him while Taub called Wilson and Chase ran out to find a wheel chair. "Taub, hang up the damn phone. Wilson doesn't want to hear about me. I don't live there anymore, and I don't need him. I can handle this by myself after I get up off the floor. Hang up the phone now," House commanded.

Chase came in with the wheel chair. Unfortunately Wilson saw Chase out in the hallway, and Sandy had already told Wilson that House fell in front of the elevator and wasn't able to get up on his own. The nightmare continued as more and more people found out, through the hospital grapevine, that Chase and Foreman had been involved in some kind of a scene with House out in public on the fourth floor. Of course Cuddy found out, and immediately put the blame on House for the HIPAA violation, for failing to keep his team under control. Now she had angry visitors lined up in front of her door, accusing "some doctors on the fourth floor" of blabbing all kinds of patient information in public and causing some kind of a scene apparently. Nobody mentioned the fact that one of them was flat out on the floor.

It was the talk of the town. Even Blue the janitor got involved, because House's cell phone could be heard incessantly ringing at the bottom of the elevator shaft and someone was going to have to get it out. Blue shut the power off to the elevators while he tried to figure out how he was going to get the cell phone out, and visitors waiting for the elevators got angrier and angrier.

House, meanwhile, had no idea that by now the entire hospital knew something was wrong with him. Cuddy was on her way back up to his office with a pile of complaints about whatever she thought happened, and she wasn't in a forgiving mood.

Cuddy burst into House's office with her arms full of written complaints from clinic patients and visitors about whatever happened on the fourth floor, about the rude doctor who snapped at them when they were "just trying to help", the long wait time in the clinic, about the elevators being off. She was loaded with ammunition and ready to hunt bear. "House, what the hell's going on?" she shouted. "If you were hurt that badly, you should have stayed home and called me AHEAD OF TIME. Now people are complaining that apparently some kind of scene happened with a bunch of doctors up here in public in front of the elevator, and I can only guess that somehow or another you were involved. I don't want to hear what happened. Get your team under control. If I hear another complaint about you or your team blabbing about patients in public, or you screaming at strangers, I'll fire you." House just stared at her and wondered how she could remain apparently oblivious (or at least uncaring) about the fact that he was STILL on the floor, saying nothing, and balled up in a fetal position with blood oozing from his shoulder.

Blue paged Dr. Cuddy. She called him back. "Dr. Cuddy, we found House's cell phone in the elevator shaft and I just now turned the power back on to the elevators."

"His cell phone was at the bottom of the elevator shaft? How'd you find out?" Cuddy asked Blue. "A bunch of visitors called the maintenance department complaining that something was making a loud beeping noise inside the elevator. We looked everywhere and couldn't find it, but when I shined a light into the elevator shaft, we saw the phone. It was no big deal to get the phone back out. I figured whoever it belonged to would need it." Blue was hoping for a note of thanks from Cuddy, but she just clicked her phone shut and walked with a purpose back into House's office.

"House, Blue found your phone at the bottom of an elevator shaft. He's bringing it up now. How about telling me what happened?" Cuddy said a little more calmly. Chase was parking the wheel chair and House's cane where House wanted them.

House said "Cuddy, I have more important things to deal with now; specifically, how I'm going to get up off the floor. I don't want to do this in front of a crowd. I've already fallen enough in public today to feed the hospital gossip mill for an entire year. Please don't make this any more embarrassing for me than it already is. I just need to get up off the floor. I don't need your help and I don't need an audience. Please just go back to your office. If you still think you need to yell at me more about whatever you think happened today, you can continue yelling at me later. When you came in and yelled at me earlier, I asked you to move my phone closer to where I could reach it, and you stormed out of here. I fell when I got up trying to get to my office phone. I must have injured my left sciatic nerve yesterday. My left leg gives out every few steps. Crawling through rubble and having part of a building fall on ya will do that to a cripple. It'll be fine when it heals. I thought you'd need help in the clinic today. That's why I came in, even though I shouldn't have. After I walked in the doors I knew I wouldn't be able to stay on my feet long enough to do any good in the clinic. I didn't say anything to you because I knew you wouldn't believe me. Hell, normally I wouldn't believe me either. I hoped that today I wouldn't have to spell it out for you, especially since you saw me fall the first time. Well, don't feel so bad. I had to spell it out for Foreman and Chase too, after they saw me on the floor for the second time in front of the fourth floor elevators. This marks the third fall today. I still don't need your help. I just need to get up off the floor and I don't need you for that. Bye."

Considerably more chastened, Cuddy said softly, "Ok," and walked out of his office.


	3. Somebody Help Me

Collapse Chapter 3

**A/N – thank you for the nice reviews! At this point the story is just going to cover the day after the collapse, so I don't anticipate there will be more than one or two additional chapters. We'll probably go up to five chapters or so. Cuddy will figure in again soon, in a more positive and helpful light.**

His team, not sure if House needed them or not, went back to their outer office. House found himself alone again. "Well, SOMEBODY get in here!" House hollered. Chase walked in with just a hint of a sneer on his face and said "I thought you didn't need help." "Shut up and hold the wheel chair," House mumbled. "You think this is easy for me? You think I like needing help just to get my ass up off the floor? You think I like falling in public and having everyone ignore me on the floor? Stop being an ass yourself and just hold the damn chair."

While Chase held the chair, House sat up and scooted back until he could feel the front of the wheel chair against his back. He bent his left knee a little bit and used his cane on his right side to get up just enough for Chase to slide the wheel chair under his butt.

"Thanks," was all House could mutter, with his eyes down. He was so ashamed of his weakness that he couldn't even bring himself to look Chase in the eye. "You didn't have to lie there by yourself all that time. Why didn't you throw something at the door or else just scream at us like you always do? We were in your outer office." Chase said.

"Well, let's see. Who likes falling on their ass in public? Who likes lying on the floor in the middle of a hallway with two of their employees talking over their face? Who likes lying on the floor with their employees looking AND their boss yelling at them? I asked you a minute ago – do you really think I like this? You honestly can't be that stupid. If I could have gotten up on my own don't you think I'd have done that? If I didn't have any pride, I would have asked you right away for help while I was sprawled out in front of the elevator. I honestly didn't think I'd have to ask." House said.

Chase replied "Every time I've ever offered you a hand, you completely ignored me! When your cane broke, Cameron and I came running and I offered you a hand and you treated me like I had leprosy or something."

"Yeah, you offered a hand, even though there was usually subtext behind it. The one time I needed it, I guess I realized then that I may have burned a few too many bridges behind me. I thought maybe at some point during this entire year you might have realized I've changed. I even thought after the karaoke thing that you guys might not think I'm a TOTAL ass anymore. I guess I was wrong. Please go down to Cuddy's office and take the blame for what you did and keep me out of it."

Wilson, having heard some of the story from Sandy, took his time walking to House's office. "You gonna put a 'I'd rather be walking' bumper sticker on the back of that thing?" he cracked.

"Shut up!" House demanded. He couldn't tell Wilson how embarrassed he was. Just not a guy thing to do. Better to yell and deflect. "Shut the hell up! Go home to your soon-to-be repeat ex girlfriend-wife. You know, in case you've forgotten, she's the one who puts the milk in the wrong place in the fridge. I've forgotten, too – is she ex number 1, 2 or 3?"

"Oh, you're not getting rid of me that easy." Wilson shot back.

"Look, I know you think you have to care for some reason, but honestly, you don't. You kicked me out of your home. Fine. Alvie sold all my shit and painted my home ochre and magenta. It looks like Barney barfed all over it. I can't fix the paint because now I can't stand for more than a few minutes without my left leg giving out on me. I sure can't stand on a ladder. It's kind of difficult to live in a home where most of the furniture has been sold off and everything else is covered in duct tape and painters' drop cloths. But who the hell cares. Cuddy guilted me into going to that damn disaster yesterday. I should have said no, but if I had said no, everyone would have thought 'Oh, that's just House being an ass again and refusing to help.' I went because Cuddy went. After eight hours of crawling through rubble and having part of the building fall on me, my left leg hurts. But if I'd said anything, you would have chalked it up to a 'conversion disorder' just like you did years ago whenever I let on how bad my right leg always hurts. You'd have already decided that my left leg was hurting because Hannah died, or some crazy shit like that. Again, it goes back to 'who the hell cares'. My team showed exactly how much they cared when they stood there and watched, even talked over me, while I was sprawled out on the floor in front of the elevator. Cuddy showed how much she cared, yelling at me and doing nothing to help when I fell on the first floor and again when she saw me on the floor in my office."

House took a breather. Wilson was too stunned to say anything. House joined right back in.

"After you bribed Foreman and Chase to take me to the karaoke bar, I really thought they might have noticed over the past YEAR that I've changed a little. I have, but apparently not enough, and it goes back again to 'who the hell cares'. And to put the cherry on this little cake here, I thought Cuddy would have seen the same thing. But I'm the stupid one. I missed such OBVIOUS symptoms as you bribing people to be friends with me, Cuddy sending me on a six hour wild goose chase over Thanksgiving that sent me into an entirely new stratosphere of pain when I finally got out of the car, you not even visiting or calling me ONCE at Mayfield, you kicking me out of the home that you bought because of me, Cameron leaving and blaming me for 'ruining' Chase, Nolan making me feel even worse…and the only person who apparently gives a damn about me, without having some kind of an agenda, is Sandy. She was the only one today who had the common sense to realize I just might need a hand, without yelling at me or ignoring me."

"So really, I have just had it. I don't understand how things could have gone even more downhill than they were before I went crazy. I need to go home and figure out, first of all, how I'm going to resurrect my pride. After yesterday and today, I have none.  
When you left, after Amber died, you said you tried to find all kinds of ways to blame me for her death; well, now I know how you felt then because that's how I feel now. I wish I could leave and find all kinds of ways to blame you and everyone else for the fact that I'm no better off now than I was before Mayfield."


	4. Wilson

Collapse Chapter 4

**A/N – thank you again for the kind remarks! This chapter is all Hilson. Cuddy comes up next chapter. I may have made them a bit out of character toward the end of this chapter, but then again, House is making efforts to change on the show so I feel like the other characters need to respect that and change a little bit themselves.**

Thankfully, House drove his car in to work today. His left leg couldn't be trusted on a motorcycle. He rolled out of his office leaving a stunned and very angry Wilson standing there looking like an idiot. He had already informed his team that he was leaving as soon as he got up in the wheel chair.

On his way down to his car, House wondered if he should care that he may have burned the Wilson bridge forever.

_Ok, so it's true, everyone does lie. That doesn't mean they lie all the time. One of the good things I got from Nolan, if I'm being completely honest with myself, is that friendship is a two way street. I deserve honesty from Wilson and he deserves it from me even if it doesn't come naturally. Otherwise, Wilson's right – I will end up alone. Doesn't that mean I should be able to say what I'm thinking? Wilson has no problem telling me what he's thinking. Hell, he doesn't even have a problem telling me what I SHOULD be thinking. Why should I have a problem telling him exactly what's on my mind? _

_Nobody likes to admit they need help. _

_When I fell because Wilson sawed through my cane. Yeah, I had it coming and yeah, it was funny, and yeah, I'd been pranking him too. It was kind of fun but the fun disappeared when everyone who saw me fall started laughing at me, and Wilson just walked away, and nobody offered me a hand up. And even though I'd been pranking Wilson, I never did anything deliberately to hurt him._

_When I fell because Wilson's dog chewed through my cane. Wilson was standing right there when it happened and just looked at me after I hit the wall AND the floor, and kept right on talking. I'm laying there on the floor telling him his dog chewed through my cane, and not only did he not offer to help me up, I had to trick him into replacing the broken one. Of course I called him a coward. Chase offered a hand, but I could never tell if he was doing it just to impress Cameron. _

_When Cuddy moved my parking spot without telling me, and it was snowing and icy outside. Everyone thought I was over reacting when I made that bet that I could stay in a wheel chair for a week. I didn't think I'd have to tell anyone that my gait isn't steady enough to walk that far on icy pavement. Cuddy wasn't going to give me my space back without a fight, so if I didn't want to wind up on my ass in the parking lot, of course I needed a wheel chair, but I couldn't bring myself to admit it. _

_When I overdosed that one Christmas Eve. Ok, so I made a few mistakes. Stealing the dead guy's pills wasn't so smart but by then I was so screwed up with pain and in withdrawal that I wasn't thinking straight. Forging those scrips was dumb too but I kind of got forced into doing that. Still, I thought I had no way out, because when you're in pain, you're in pain, and why should the burden have to be on me to prove that I needed adequate pain relief? And when Wilson found me in a puddle of my own vomit, all he did was turn around and leave again. He didn't even call 911. What's worse is that nobody gave a damn that I was wrongfully arrested in the first place. It isn't illegal to operate a vehicle with legally prescribed or over the counter medications in your possession. I wasn't operating my motorcycle unsafely or in any way illegally except it is true I didn't have my driver's license with me. A ticket was warranted, not an arrest. Tritter had no right to arrest me in the first place but when I tried to plead my case to anyone else who would listen, Wilson included, I was ignored and made to feel that everything was my own fault._

_And that whole mess with Tritter never would have happened if Wilson would have believed me when I told him the Ketamine treatment was wearing off. "Pangs of middle age" my ass. What an asinine thing to say. I knew right then and there Wilson didn't believe me and wasn't going to do anything to help. I might as well have been talking to a damn wall. Actually, what I should have done was go to a pain management specialist. I just never thought my best friend would abandon me like that._

_I could go on and on but I'm at my car now. Bottom line is, hell, I don't even know if I've hit the bottom line yet. _

House made it home with the passenger side door open. He got the wheel chair in the passenger side of the front seat, but even after trying that trick he used before (backing the car up quickly and slamming on the brakes) he couldn't get the passenger front door to close on its own. He couldn't reach over the wheel chair to close the door himself, so he drove home with the door open. Luckily it was only eight miles, and the wheel chair didn't fall out of the open door. He had a little problem because there were a few steps to negotiate to get into his apartment, but fortunately the pain in his left leg wasn't constant and he was certain enough that he could manage to get into (and navigate inside of) his apartment safely without needing the chair in there. He still felt like a crippled man who'd grown old before his time, and even though he'd never admit it publicly, he hoped that his neighbors wouldn't see the predicament he was in.

A few awkward moments later, gripping the stair rail for all it was worth, he was inside his apartment.

The phone was ringing and there were four messages on his answering machine, all from Wilson. House listened to the messages and then unplugged the damn phone.  
Message #1: "House, we need to talk! I'm sorry! Please call me when you get home!"

Message #2: "House, don't erase this message. Please call me!"

Message #3: "Ok, well, I guess you hate me. Maybe I'll try later."

Message #4: - CLICK.

_Hmm. I need to think about what I'm going to say. I'm going to take a hot bath and think about talking to him later._

Ibuprofen actually does wonders for pain relief from temporary injuries. It's usually much more effective against temporary aches and pains than it is for management of chronic pain, House knew. He had no problem throwing back a few Ibuprofen before he climbed into a nice, steamy, hot bath. He turned his cool waterproof radio on, listened to some Dr. John and sank into a blissful state of relaxation.

Later Tuesday night, Wilson's phone rang. Wilson saw the caller ID and picked the phone up with a sigh, not quite knowing what to say. He never got a chance to say anything. House just blurted out "You're right, we have to talk. Come over. I have a six pack of Guinness Extra Stout in the fridge," and hung up.

Not entirely sure if Wilson would actually show up, but hoping he would, House changed back into street clothes after his nice bath and made himself comfortable out on the couch watching a Flyers hockey game on TV.

About 9 pm, a hesitant knock could be heard. Wilson expected to hear "Use your key, I'm not getting up." Instead, he was met at the door by a clean shaven House whose hair was neatly brushed and who was wearing a golf shirt and neatly pressed khaki pants. House was even wearing after shave. Wilson had never seen this version of House before. Unsure of what to say, neither man said anything. House just stepped aside to allow Wilson room to enter.

House turned the TV off, motioned for Wilson to have a seat on the couch, and the two men continued awkwardly staring at each other, trying to get the conversation started but unsure of what to say. Wilson's gaze turned to the ochre walls and the magenta ceiling. House broke the awkward silence.

"Look, I'm not mad. I don't want you to be mad either. I need to say some stuff." House's gaze moved from Wilson's eyes to the mess Alvie had created that was still covered in painter's cloths and duct tape. Suddenly neither man could bring himself to look at the other. "I'm not good at this personal stuff", House muttered, gazing at the magenta ceiling. "But hell, you're here, and I thought you probably wouldn't come. I hate being called a cripple" House suddenly got up the nerve and swung his head around to stare full bore at Wilson. Confidence slowly coming back after uttering that last sentence, House continued. "I hate this damn thing." He thrust the cane out in front of himself toward Wilson. "I hate this damn thing too." He pulled up his pant leg and pointed to the scar. "All these freakin' years later, and I feel like this shit" pointing again to his scar "just happened yesterday." House looked like he was about to burst into tears, but he could still hear his father in his mind telling him to "man it up". So he stopped talking, blew his nose and remained dry-eyed, looking right at Wilson.

Wilson, even more unsure of what to say in the face of this new version of House, said nothing and waited House out.

"I'm terrible at this shit and I feel like I'm one step away from going back to Mayfield again. I don't want that." House said. "I don't trust Nolan anymore and I feel like the whole year with him has been flushed down the drain, erased."

Wilson took a deep breath and slowly started speaking. "Hey, I know this isn't easy. You stuck with me through all my divorces when nobody else did. You may think I'm you're only friend; I know for a fact that you're my only friend. That doesn't mean that either of us has done a very good job maintaining the friendship. Now I know this isn't exactly a guy thing to do. I think, probably, that most guys would run instantly toward the nearest TV and turn the hockey game up to full blast and avoid ANY of this discussion – right?" Wilson said gently. House cracked a little smile and then, just as quickly, the smile vanished. Fear and uncertainty were beginning to rear their ugly heads again.

"Thought so. Want a beer?" Wilson asked. "Hey, I'll get up and get them. Why are you dressed like that and why are you still standing?" Wilson asked over his shoulder as he went out to the kitchen to get the beers.

"Because I wasn't sure if you would even come." House said. "I thought if you did show up, you might just turn right back around and leave me again. I thought a little visual shock might buy me just enough time to hold the door open and drag you inside. And now that you're actually inside, the second half of my plan goes into effect. I'm standing here to block your exit."

"Well, I'm not leaving, so sit down, mess your hair up, get the golf shirt off and your Pink Floyd tee shirt on and let's talk."

Wilson came back from the kitchen with the frosty cold Guinness Extra Stout bottles and a bottle opener and plopped everything down on House's coffee table that had the extra chip in it courtesy of Alvie and the pawn shop.

House had stretched out on the couch. He took a long pull from the beer and took an even deeper breath. "I hate being called a cripple. I know I call myself that. I'm entitled. Other people are not. I never told anybody. I'm saying it now. Don't call me a cripple." House picked up the golf shirt he'd tossed on the couch and fingered it a little.

Wilson looked at him and said nothing. He was genuinely interested in what House had to say, and wanted to avoid passing any kind of judgment.

"Hannah didn't want to be a cripple either." House continued, slowly and thoughtfully.

"Looking at her was like erasing all the years after my injury. I was right back there on the golf course when my leg started hurting. The only difference is, the whole time I was looking at her, I knew – I just KNEW – she'd have a much better life after her injury than I did after mine. So I did what I had to do, and everything just came to a crashing halt anyway in the ambulance when she died." House stopped again to gather his thoughts.

Wilson said "Why were you wearing golf clothes tonight?"

"I don't know. Can we get past the clothes?" House shot back.

Looking back down into his lap again, House slowly muttered "Last night after I got home, everything was hurting so bad but I didn't want to get sucked back into that Vicodin shithole again. I threw back more Ibuprofen, went back to take a bath and fell on the bathroom floor. I grabbed onto something to help stop the fall, and it happened to be the mirror, which of course I knocked off and shattered. I just spent the night there on the floor. I figured it was easier that way. I dreamed I was on the golf course. I dreamed I was in a sand trap at Augusta and my legs got stuck in quick sand. I was sinking down, deeper and deeper. I tried to pull my left leg out and it started hurting like a bitch. I couldn't get out and the greens keeper said they'd have to cut both of my legs off at the hip or else the rest of me would sink too. The grounds crew came back with a scythe; you know, the tool that farmers used to cut wheat in the old days. I woke up when they swung the scythe the first time."

Wilson said "My God, why didn't you call me?" House said, resignedly: "Because it's nothing new. It's nothing that hasn't happened a thousand times over the years. I fall a lot. Most of the time, everybody ignores me when I'm on the floor or the parking lot or wherever. I'm used to it."

Realization began to dawn on Wilson. "Oh shit, House. I'm so sor…" House butted in and said, "Don't say it. I know you are."

"I brought on a lot of that myself." House muttered, a little louder, with a little more confidence. "I hate what happened to me. I hate that I can't wear shorts in public because people stare. I hate falling or, worse yet, just being constantly afraid of falling, when I'm in public. I don't hate people. I hate THIS. I hate that I'm in pain all the time. But what I hate most of all is that I never moved beyond the hate. I looked in Hannah's eyes in the ambulance and I could see that she already had the strength to deal with her disability. She had what I still don't have all these years later."

"When I let on how much pain I'm in, or when I fall, or when people stare at me because of the cane, I lash out because I hate myself. I'm never, ever allowed to just be a normal guy, because every time I forget I'm abnormal, something knocks me down and reminds me. Painfully. Like a bullet when I got shot. Like the building yesterday when I tried to play Superman and crawl through a collapsed building. Like Cuddy telling me she didn't love me. Like getting knocked out against the wall of a bus. I'd give anything just to be normal for one day. To be able to wear a pair of sexy shorts without being stared at for the wrong reason. To be able to work, really work all day, without worrying about when the leg is going to bite me back. To be able to sit in the balcony at a theater with some cute chick and not have to worry about how I'm going to get up the steps after intermission and carry our snacks at the same time."

Both men sat silently, taking long draughts of their beers. After a few moments, Wilson took another deep breath and answered. "House, when I got back with Sam and you started all those shenanigans trying to break us up, I told you I knew that you were only looking out for my best interest and to stop trying to help me. I know you were trying to help me see Sam was bad news. I know you were trying to help by playing the bad guy, so that when we did break up, Sam would hate you instead of me. That's why I asked you to stop helping and just behave like your normal self. I figured if it does go south, I didn't want Sam to hate you.

Maybe I'm totally off base here, but I think if I hate myself, then I don't have a problem with other people hating me either because I'm not worthy of being liked or loved. Right?"

House just looked at him with unspoken understanding.

"Since you're changing, would you admit maybe, just maybe, that applies to you?"

The corner of House's mouth quirked up in a hint of a smile, almost a smirk, and he didn't answer.

"Ok. First off, I need to know what you want me to do when we're together and you fall. You might think it's a stupid question – Ok, maybe it's me that thinks it's a stupid question – but since I messed it up so badly in the past, obviously I need to know what you need me to do or don't need me to do." Wilson said with a smile.

"Oh man, I feel like an idiot but here goes…" said House, uncharacteristically quiet. "Give me a few minutes to get myself together and let me try to get up myself. Stick your hand out if I can't get up. Don't make a big deal out of it. If you see me try to get up unsuccessfully, you don't have to ask if I need help – and don't touch me. Just offer your hand. I resented Chase for offering me a hand that time because first of all he was trying to show off for Cameron, and secondly he didn't give me a chance to try to get up by myself first."

Wilson smiled. _Ok, so I know this isn't the kind of conversation either one of us would have had in the past. Obviously we should have and I'm glad he brought it up._

"What about carrying things? Is it too crazy to ask if you need help carrying stuff?"

"No. The other person who ever even brought that up before was Stacy, when we were stuck in the airport in Baltimore and she wondered why I checked my carry-on. She said she'd forgotten that it was difficult for me to carry and walk. Here's an example. If I'm grocery shopping and someone can see that I have too much to carry, it'd be nice to ask if they can return my cart for me so I don't have to make an unnecessary trip from my car to the store and back just to return the cart. Ever wondered why I order take out so much? Saves a lot of wear and tear on my legs at the grocery store."

Wilson said "When I moved in with you and we were pranking each other, I'm sorry for hurting you. I knew you wanted me to get back at you - hell you were egging me on. I crossed a line when I made you fall. Sorry about that."

Wilson and House sat together on the couch nursing the last of their beers, which were now warm. Wilson had somewhat of an amazed look on his face. House remained very uncharacteristically quiet, yet not really withdrawn. It was more like a look of quiet satisfaction, like quiet relief that a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. After a few more minutes of silence, both men started talking at the same time and then laughing. "If I'd said those things a year or more ago, I know how you'd have reacted. I can't believe I said them now, but man, I feel so liberated!" House said between stifled laughs.

"Baby steps, House. Baby steps!" Wilson said with a smile.


	5. Cuddy

Collapse chapter 5

Cuddy

"_You're a cold hearted bitch who just ripped my heart out. I'm not crawling back to you so you can do it again."_

"_I wish I'd known what I was getting into 20 years ago. Just like Sam and Wilson 12 years ago, only worse. Sam only came back into Wilson's life once. You just won't go away. I don't love you, Cuddy."_

As Wilson slept out on the couch, House went back to his bedroom thinking about what he was going to say to Cuddy Wednesday morning.

He really didn't hate Cuddy; in fact, he truthfully had no idea how he felt about Cuddy. Unlike all the other puzzles, she was one that he had never been able to solve. She had a long history of dropping out of his life, and then popping back in at the most inopportune times.

One day he loved her, the next he hated her; or maybe it was the other way around. THAT was the unsolvable puzzle. One day they kissed when he was there for her after the adoption fell through, the next day she set a trip wire and made him fall in his office in front of his whole team, and made fun of him when he hobbled into her office using a janitor's mop as support because she stole his cane. One day she invited him to Thanksgiving dinner, and the next day she sent him on a six hour wild goose chase in the car without caring what kind of pain that would cause him. One day he walked into her office hallucinating, not having slept in days, and obviously sick, threatening to quit, and she walked out on him.

One day she was a hot date and 12 years later, he found out how dangerous it was to ever have loved her when he showed up in her hospital as a patient. One day he trusted her to do as he asked, and three days later he woke up to the consequences of trusting her. One day he was a highly-sought-after diagnostics genius, and after the infarction and its aftermath, he'd been fired from the other top notch hospitals and the only administrator who would hire him was HER.

He wasn't sure who the bigger fool was. Cuddy for continuing to pop back into his life after ripping him up, or him for actually thinking she loved him. So now he was stuck in an impossible situation. This woman, who once told Wilson that House really knew how to stick the knife in deep, had just stuck a knife into him deeper than anyone else had ever done and he had no idea how he was going to pull that knife back out again. He knew it had to be done, though, and he knew that if he was ever going to get any kind of stability back in his life again, he was going to have to make her help him pull that knife out.

On the ride in to work the next morning, both men remained a little uncharacteristically quiet, but Wilson was relieved to see a look of quiet determination and confidence on House's face that never appeared unless House had one of his epiphanies. Wilson knew that something was on House's mind.

"Wanna talk about it?" Wilson asked. "Are you alright?"

"Those must be the three most useless words in the English language. Are you alright. Not really, but after last night, I'm a lot better, and after I see Cuddy today, I'll be even better than I am now," House answered with a quirky smile.

"Are you kidding?" Wilson looked at House incredulously. _How can he think about flirting with her now_ was the thought running through Wilson's mind.

"You do realize that sentence contained the fourth most useless word in the English language. Kidding. And no, I'm not. Trust me." House replied.

As they arrived at the hospital, Wilson thoughtfully switched places in the car with House so House could get out right at the door. Wilson parked House's car in House's spot and thought about trying to reschedule some of his appointments today. Several things could happen; the most interesting possibilities were that House and Cuddy would just kill each other outright, they would have wild make up sex on her couch, or they would wind up having wild sex on her couch and THEN kill each other. Whatever happened, Wilson had a pretty good idea that the fallout would be astronomical.

House made his way up to his office and met with his team about the crane driver. They'd finally diagnosed him and he was responding well to treatment. Foreman announced that he was going down to the ER to look for cases. House just said "Have at it. I'm booked the rest of the day" and headed down to the cafeteria to have a bagel and gather his thoughts one last time before heading off to Cuddy's office. Once he arrived at his favorite table, he sent a text message to Cuddy: "Clear AM sched. Need to C U. B there in a min."

ZZIINNNGG went House's phone. Text message from Cuddy: "No. I'm busy."

House replied: "Make time today. Need to C U."

ZZIINNNGG: "L8tr" was Cuddy's reply.

_Oh Hell no, she's not blowing me off today_. House stormed off to her office.

Cuddy's new assistant stopped House. _What is this, like her hundredth lackey? What does she do, use them up and toss them out too?_ House thought amusedly.

"She's busy. She said for me to tell you she can't see you today," said the new assistant to the man she obviously didn't know very well.

"I don't take no for an answer. See, you don't know me. I'm annoying as hell and I stick like glue. I'm not going anywhere. I'll outlast you." House thought _Wow, I can rhyme too, _smiled, and eased down into a chair in Cuddy's outer office. He prepared for a long wait.

Cuddy wrapped up her meeting with the hospital's attorney. On his way out, the attorney shot a verbal jab at House: "Haven't seen you in awhile. Miss me?"

House ignored the attorney, lurched to his feet, and quietly limped into Cuddy's office.

Cuddy looked up with an exasperated look. "House, I told you, I will see you later. I don't have time now."

House stared her right in the face and said, "That's just your way of blowing me off, so to speak. We need to talk." Seeing no response other than just a hard and somewhat confused look from Cuddy, he kept up the grin and the stare. "I'm not one of your Boy Fridays here, one of your temps, that you can just use up and toss aside."

"What are you talking about?" Cuddy said, looking genuinely confused

_Ok. Gotta keep the job, but I'll be damned if she's gonna walk all over me any more and get away with it _thought House.

"House, what's wrong?" Cuddy asked

"You're smart. I sure don't know why you're so confused. You sure as hell weren't confused Monday." House asserted.

Cuddy still wasn't quite sure where this was going, but she thought she had an idea. House continued: "I've fallen over and over again since Monday and all you've done is yell at me. You saw me on the floor twice, and you still have the nerve to ask what's wrong with me. I should be asking you what's wrong with you." House was nearly yelling now, but the lopsided, quirky smile was still there. Cuddy was ready to match him in volume but he cut her off before she had a chance to fire off a reply.

House hesitated a moment. When he resumed speaking, the smile faded and so did the volume. His voice took on a somber tone. He stared daggers at her.

"If I was anyone else, you'd have genuinely cared about me all along. All those times I told you how bad I was really hurting, you would never have blown me off if I was someone else."

Cuddy shot back: "House, when have I ever blown…" House interrupted her: "I came in here when we had that adolescent supermodel. Remember? I could barely stand up. I asked for a shot of morphine in my spine. Remember? You think I was proud of having to ask for that? You tried to blow me off then. You called me a junkie. I dropped my pants because you obviously didn't believe that I was hurting. I thought you obviously needed some sort of a reminder why my leg hurt. Yeah, you gave me a shot and it was a placebo. Instead of really helping, you acted like I was some kind of a Frankenstein, staring at my scar like I was some kind of freak or something. You already know what my scar looks like, remember? You didn't have to act like it was something to be afraid of. I already feel like a damn freak. I hate the way I feel, and I don't need people making me feel even worse."

Irate by now, Cuddy leaped up from behind her desk and started pacing behind House and around her office. She wheeled around and opened her mouth for another reply. House opened his mouth to cut her off, but Cuddy fired the next volley: "You've lied to me over and over and over again. I gave up trying to weed out the truth from your vast field of lies a long time ago. I'm sorry that you feel like a freak, but don't blame that on me. And as far as my calling you a junkie, I know about that morphine stash you had on top of your bookshelf at home. I know about all the places you hid stashes of Vicodin. I know about the booze you hide in your office – hell, everyone else here knows about it too. I also know what you had planned to have done when you faked cancer and booked that trip to Boston."

House clamped his eyes shut and started banging his cane on the floor. He was developing a massive headache and the anger was literally oozing out of every pore of his body. He rolled his eyes and said, in a drawn-out voice, "Yeeeaaahhhh, here we go again. You're just gonna keep digging that corpse back up again, aren't you? Yeah, it's a big corpse and yeah, it isn't buried all that deep and it still stinks sometimes. Every time I think I've buried it deep enough, though, you dig the whole Vicodin _mes_, this _meshugas_ back up again. I get it. Everybody's got their own _shandah. _You just can't let mine alone."

House diverted his gaze to the floor and then back up at Cuddy again.

Cuddy said "Well, since you're going all Yiddish on me, we need to stop this _krig_. Everybody has something that they think they have to be ashamed of. We can keep finding fault with each other until I get sick enough of it and fire your ass, or"

"Or we can suck it up and deal with it." House continued her sentence for her. "My money's on the latter."

Both looked at each other in silence.

"Can we talk like adults or do I have to get out the choke chain collar?" Cuddy quipped.

"I *KNEW* you were into S&M," House said with a zing and a return of his lopsided smile.

Cuddy turned to walk away. "And *I* knew this was a mistake. I'm going home," she said as she walked out the door.

"Cuddy, wait. Please," came the suddenly quieter voice from her office.

"I call a Mulligan. I'm sorry. Seriously. No choke chain. I promise I'll be good." House said, hoping against hope that he hadn't permanently burned his last bridge with Cuddy. Lord knew he'd burned Dresden a thousand times over, _but so has she, dammit!_

Cuddy turned with an exasperated look. "A Mulligan, House? Please. Counting this last one, you've had more Mulligans than hos,. Your hos should be jealous." Then she saw the look in his eyes and softened her attitude a smidge. "Ok, I'll listen, but this better be good."

House took a deep breath, painfully stood up and walked towards Cuddy's door. As he moved to close her door and blinds so they could have some privacy, Cuddy couldn't help but let her concern for him show just a little. She tried to hide it behind some sort of a protective shell she'd built to shield herself from his usual sarcasm, but something about his demeanor told her she could let her guard down safely this time. He really was hurting, and so was she, and they really did need to talk.

House said, "I don't know how much of this…brokenness…. we can fix. I say 'we" because it isn't just me and you know it. If you think I'm the only one around here who still needs fixing, then you're right, there is no 'us'. Are we fixable?" he asked her pointedly.

"I don't know what to think, House, except I'm tired of the squabbling and the games and whatever part I had in all this mess. Where do we go from here? You ask 'are we fixable?' Hell, I have no idea. I don't even think *I'm* fixable, let alone you."

House said "Cuddy, I'm not going to defend my need for pain relief anymore. It's not all there is to me but it's a big part, and I'm not going to defend what I do to relieve it anymore. I don't use my pain to drive people away like I used to; that broken part of me I did manage to fix at Mayfield. I wasn't lying when I told Hannah that it changed me. But the pain didn't make me a worse person. Having to constantly defend my own pain relief methods to every Tom, James, Dick, Lisa and Herschel did. I'm on Ibuprofen now and I'm in as much or more pain now than I ever was when I was on Vicodin, and the chances that I'll ever be completely pain free are getting slimmer and slimmer the older I get and the more failed therapies I undergo. So now that's out in the open. I refuse to hide behind it anymore."

Cuddy took a minute to compose herself before replying. "House, I'm barely holding it together myself. I'm not exactly the queen of stable relationships. You were right, years ago, when you told me adopting a baby wasn't exactly in the baby's best interest. I thought being a mother would come naturally, but I have to work at it much harder than I realized. It all came so naturally to my mother. When Lucas came along, and don't look at me like that, but when Lucas came along I thought finally I'd have a stable man in my life to be a good father figure for Rachel. I guess you were right about that too. He's a nice guy and he's good with Rachel but I don't love him. I know it's screwed up, and I can't explain it, but I love you. I always have. I just don't know if you and me together can work. You're not completely fixed yet but I saw something in you, the way you helped Hannah, that I've never seen before. I see more hope of you getting fixed than me getting fixed."

House replied, "So are you willing to give it a try?"

**A/N – I'm deliberately ending this on a question. I simply don't know if their relationship will work. I would have no idea how to resolve that question. To end this story on a happy note, like they're riding off into the sunset together, would be a mistake. My guess is it's going to be a very stormy ride. I guess it's up to others to resolve it, and I guess we'll see in Season 7. Enjoy!**


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